Life Sans Spikelet And Earrings Poem by GOBINDA SAHOO

Original Odia: Pitambar Taria
English rendering: Gobinda Sahoo

Don't let me hear Dillip,
the alphabets of grove and land
the music of grains,
rather multiplying is the stream of grief
say if you can, is there an ounce of honey
or essence of land,
the golden alphabets of long-stretched land,
You know- we are landless, unworthy and dependent.

The belittled home at the outskirts for ages stand
is ours,
the hands that lift stool, urine, carcass and corpse
to fill the belly is ours,
Have in such a helpless yard
a bunch of spikelet or a pair of earrings
ever fallen or will ever fall?
No Dillip, the house with poison-grief-distress remains
surrounded by snakes and reptiles of verses,
roaring gospel and oppression of the Brahmin's chanting.

For that only
on the green roof or rooftop
the twigs of gourd or pumpkin of pleasure
is yet to spread,
to make a talipot palm of pleasure stand I've failed
with a fright that taller it may look in all hamlet,
You know- how agonizing is a frightful living.

Had we owned a small holding
we'd have proved our right of farming
for we know not how love for cereals
in autumn air floats
How spotless snow attired like moonbeam and jasmine
in the land of hunger a morsel of rice seem
how the flag-luxury flutters in distance horizon,
How shall I know dear Dillip,
I could, had I owned some measures of land!

The systematic ridges around the land,
I'd have realized, is ours.

As is limited the love for land
in our father's vertebra of dignity and pride,
so is the mother's heaven of pleasure and delight,
And then, with sister-in-law's earrings mortgaged,
in rains for days we drenched
bartering sweat and blood
like a pied-crested cuckoo
would have waited for the night boon
bunches many of budding spikelet to bloom!

Who does live in the granary?
It is the Goddess of wealth.
Does she bear the reek of lappet-
as our mother's-
dishevelled hair, listless face,
distressed eyes, attired in gloom- like dusk?
Does her feet remain sans alata
How could one know? You say-
had I owned a big patch of land
from the dam site to the bald mountain!

Ho Dillip! May not we possess land or seed
or a house in the village,
yet, how ecstatic is the sight-
in the corn of mother's fate
earrings of tomorrow swinging,
on the land of father's faith
budding are spikelet countless.
And then, this hand too will fill
the granary of inner soul,
with the final harvest of struggle
You'll know!



N.B. Written after reading poet Dillip Kumar Swain's Poetry ‘Dhanaphula Kanaphula' (Spikelet and Earrings)